American Thinker.com By Thomas Lifson Thurs., Aug.06, 2020
As some readers may know, my first career was as a scholar of Japan. I earned three advanced degrees related to the subject at Harvard, taught it at Harvard and Columbia Universities, and have been a visiting professor at Japan’s preeminent anthropology institution. Inevitably, the subject of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima has been of deep interest, and I have visited that city many times starting in 1967.
I have no doubt at all that despite the horrors inflicted on innocent citizens of Japan in Hiroshima (and not forgetting thousands of Koreans imported as virtual slave laborers in the factories of that city), President Harry Truman made the correct decision, after prayer, in deciding to launch the nuclear attack.
It was horrible, horrible, horrible, unquestionably. But it averted horrors that would have been much worse, had the United States been forced to invade Mainland Japan, after the bloody conquest of Okinawa.
I won’t go in depth on the details of the argument on the trade-off, though this article published yesterday in Human Events does a good job for those who wish to familiarize themselves with the argument.
A study performed by physicist (and future Nobel Laureate) William Shockley for the War Department in 1945 estimated that the invasion of Japan would have cost 1.7-4 million American casualties, including 400,000-800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese deaths. (end of excerpts)
As a side bar, William Shockley was a white supremacist and a proud advocate for eugenics. Also, it is my understanding that before the atomic bombings, Japan was seeking peace. (r. a. note)
Full article here: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/08/after_75_years_its_time_to_for_everyone_to_admit_the_hiroshima_atomic_bombing_saved_millions_of_lives.html
